Jock of the Bushveld

by Percy Fitzpatrick

  When Jim rushed up to save Jock, it was with eager anxious shouts of the dog’s name that warned Seedling and made him turn; and as the boy ran forward the white man stepped out to stop him.

  ‘Leave the dog alone!’ he shouted, pale with anger.

  ‘Baas, Baas, the dog will be killed,’ Jim called excitedly as he tried to get round; but the white man made a jump towards him, and with a backhand slash of the sjambok struck him across the face, shouting at him again: ‘Leave him, I tell you.’

  Jim jumped back, thrusting out his stick to guard another vicious cut; and so it went on with alternate slash and guard, and the big Zulu danced round with nimble bounds, guarding, dodging or bearing the sjambok cuts, to save the dog. Seedling was mad with rage; for who had ever heard of a nigger standing up to a Field Cornet? Still Jim would not give way; he kept trying to get in front of Jock, to head him off the fight, and all the while shouting to the other boys to call me. But Seedling was the Field Cornet, and not one of them dared to move against him.

  At last the baboon, finding that Jock would not come on, tried other tactics; it made a sudden retreat and, rushing for the pole, hid behind it as for protection. Jock made a jump and the baboon leaped out to meet him, but the dog stopped at the chain’s limit, and the baboon – just as in the first dash of all – overshot the mark; it was brought up by the jerk of the collar, and for one second sprawled on its back.

  That was the first chance for Jock and he took it. With one spring he was in; his head shot between the baboon’s hindlegs, and with his teeth buried in the soft stomach he lay back and pulled – pulled for dear life, as he had pulled and dragged on the legs of wounded game; tugged as he had tugged at the porcupine; held on as he had held when the kudu bull wrenched and strained every bone and muscle in his body.

  Then came the sudden turn! As Jock fastened on to the baboon, dragging taut the chain while the screaming brute struggled on its back, Seedling stood for a second irresolute, and then with a stride forward raised his sjambok to strike the dog. That was too much for Jim; he made a spring in and, grasping the raised sjambok with his left hand, held Seedling powerless, while in his right the boy raised his stick on guard.

  ‘Let him fight, Baas! You said it! Let the dog fight!’ he panted, hoarse with excitement.

  The white man, livid with fury, struggled and kicked, but the wrist loop of his sjambok held him prisoner and he could do nothing.

  That was the moment when a panic-stricken boy plucked up courage enough to call me; and that was the scene we saw as we ran out of the little shop. Jim would not strike the white man: but his face was a muddy grey, and it was written there that he would rather die than give up the dog.

  Before I reached them it was clear to us all what had happened; Jim was protesting to Seedling and at the same time calling to me; it was a jumble, but a jumble eloquent enough for us, and all intelligible. Jim’s excited gabble was addressed with reckless incoherence to Seedling, to me, and to Jock!

  ‘You threw him in; you tried to kill him. He did it. It was not the dog. Kill him, Jock, kill him. Leave him, let him fight. You said it – Let him fight! Kill him, Jock! Kill! Kill! Kill!’

  Then Seedling did the worst thing possible; he turned on me with, ‘Call your dog off, I tell you, or I’ll shoot him and your —— nigger too!’

  ‘We’ll see about that! They can fight it out now,’ and I took the sjambok from Jim’s hand, and cut it from the white man’s wrist.

  ‘Now! Stand back!’

  And he stood back.

  The baboon was quite helpless. Powerful as the brute was, and formidable as were the arms and gripping feet, it had no chance while Jock could keep his feet and had strength to drag and hold the chain tight. The collar was choking it, and the grip on the stomach – the baboon’s own favourite and most successful device – was fatal.

  I set my teeth and thought of the poor helpless dogs that had been decoyed in and treated the same way. Jim danced about, the white seam of froth on his lips, hoarse gusts of encouragement bursting from him as he leaned over Jock, and his whole body vibrating like an overheated boiler. And Jock hung on in grim earnest, the silence on his side broken only by grunting efforts as the deadly tug – tug – tug went on. Each pull caused his feet to slip a little on the smooth worn ground; but each time he set them back again, and the grunting tugs went on.

  It was not justice to call Jock off; but I did it. The cruel brute deserved killing, but the human look and cries and behaviour of the baboon were too sickening; and Seedling went into his hut without even a look at his stricken champion.

  Jock stood off, with his mouth open from ear to ear and his red tongue dangling, bloodstained and panting, but with eager feet ever on the move shifting from spot to spot, ears going back and forward, and eyes – now on the baboon and now on me – pleading for the sign to go in again.

  Before evening the baboon was dead.

  The day’s excitement was too much for Jim. After singing and dancing himself into a frenzy round Jock, after shouting the whole story of the fight in violent and incessant gabble over and over again to those who had witnessed it, after making every ear ring and every head swim with his mad din, he grabbed his sticks once more and made off for one of the kraals, there to find drink for which he thirsted body and soul.

  In the afternoon the sudden scattering of the inhabitants of a small kraal on the hillside opposite, and some lusty shouting, drew attention that way. At distances of from two to five hundred yards from the huts there stood figures, singly or grouped in twos and threes, up to the highest slopes; they formed a sort of crescent above the kraal; and on the lower side of it, hiding under the bank of the. river, were a dozen or more whose heads only were visible. They were all looking towards the kraal like a startled herd of buck. Now and then a burly figure would dart out from the huts with wild bounds and blood-curdling yells, and the watchers on that side would scatter like chaff and flee for dear life up the mountainside or duck instantly and disappear in the river. Then he would stalk back again and disappear, to repeat the performance on another side a little later on.

  It was all painfully clear to me. Jim had broken out.

  We were loaded for Lydenburg – another week’s trekking through and over the mountains – and as we intended coming back the same way a fortnight later I decided at once to leave Jim at his kraal, which was only a little further on, and pick him up on the return journey.

  I nearly always paid him off in livestock or sheep: he had good wages, and for many months at a time would draw no money; the boy was a splendid worker and as true as steel; so that, in spite of all the awful worry, I had a soft spot for Jim and had taken a good deal of trouble on his account. He got his pay at the end of the trip or the season, but not in cash. It was invested for him – greatly to his disgust at the time I am bound to say – in livestock, so that he would not be able to squander it on drink or be robbed of it while incapable.

  Jim’s gloomy dignity was colossal when it came to squaring up and I invited him to state what he wished me to buy for him. To be treated like an irresponsible child; to be chaffed and cheerfully warned by me; to be met by the giggles and squirts of laughter of the other boys, for whom he had the most profound contempt; to see the respectable Sam counting out with awkward eager hands and gleaming eyes the good red gold, while he, Makokela the Zulu, was treated like a piccanin – Ugh! It was horrible! Intolerable!

  Jim would hold aloof in injured gloomy silence, not once looking at me, but standing sideways and staring stonily past me into the far distance, and not relaxing for a second the expression of profound displeasure on his weather-beaten face. No joke or chaff, no question or reason, would move him to even look my way. All he would do was, now and again, give a click of disgust, a quick shake of the head and say, ‘Aug! Ang-a-funa!’ (‘I do not desire it!’)

  We had the same fight over and over again, but I always won in the end. Once, when he would not make up his mind what to buy, I offered
him instead of cash two of the worst oxen in his span at the highest possible valuation, and the effect was excellent; but the usual lever was to announce that if he could not make his choice and bargain for himself I would do it for him. In the end he invariably gave way and bargained with his kaffir friends for a deal, venting on them by his hard driving and browbeating some of the accumulated indignation which ought to have gone elsewhere.

  When it was all over Jim recovered rapidly, and at parting time there was the broadest of grins and a stentorian shout of ‘Hlala Kahle! Inkos!’ and Jim went off with his springy walk, swinging his sticks and jabbering his thoughts aloud, evidently about me, for every now and again he would spring lightly into the air, twirl the stick, and shout a deep-throated ‘Inkos!’ full of the joy of living. A boy going home for his holiday!

  This time Jim was too fully wound up to be dealt with as before, and I simply turned him off, telling him to come to the camp in a fortnight’s time

  I was a day behind the waggons returning, and riding up to the camp towards midday found Jim waiting for me. He looked ill and shrunken, wrapped in an old coat and squatting against the wall of the little hut. As I passed he rose slowly and gave his ‘Sakubona! Inkos!’ with that curious controlled air by which the kaffir manages to suggest a kind of fatalist resignation or indifference touched with disgust. There was something wrong; so I rode past without stopping – one learns from them to find out how the land lies before doing anything.

  It was a bad story, almost as bad as one would think possible where civilised beings are concerned. Jim’s own story lacked certain details of which he was necessarily ignorant, it also omitted the fact that he had been drunk; but in the main it was quite true.

  This is what happened, as gleaned from several sources: several days after our departure Jim went down to the store again and raised some liquor; he was not fighting, but he was noisy, and was the centre of a small knot of shouting, arguing boys near the store when Seedling returned after a two days’ absence. No doubt it was unfortunate that the very first thing he saw on his return was the boy who had defied him and who was the cause of his humiliation; and that that boy should by his behaviour give the slenderest excuse for interference was in the last degree unlucky. Seedling’s mind was made up from the moment he set eyes on Jim. Throwing the reins over his horse’s head he walked into the excited gabbling knot, all unconscious of his advent, and laid about him with the sjambok, scattering and silencing them instantly; he then took Jim by the wrist saying, ‘I want you’; he called to one of his own boys to bring a riem, and leading Jim over to the side of the store tied him up to the horse rail with arms at full stretch. Taking out his knife he cut the boy’s clothing down the back so that it fell away in two halves in front of him; then he took off his own coat and flogged the boy with his sjambok.

  I would like to tell all that happened for one reason: it would explain the murderous manhunting feeling that possessed us when we heard it! But it was too cruel: let it be. Only one thing to show the spirit: twice during the flogging Seedling stopped to go into the store for a drink.

  Jim crawled home to find his kraal ransacked and deserted, and his wives and children driven off in panic. In addition to the flogging Seedling had, in accordance with his practice, imposed fines far beyond the boy’s means in cash, so as to provide an excuse for seizing what he wanted. The police boys had raided the kraal; and the cattle and goats – his only property – were gone.

  He told it all in a dull monotone: for the time the life and fire were gone out of him; but he was not cowed, not broken. There was a curl of contempt on his mouth and in his tone that whipped the white skin on my own back and made it all a disgrace unbearable. That this should be the reward for his courageous defence of Jock seemed too awful.

  We went inside to talk it over and make our plans. The waggons should go on next day as if nothing had happened, Jim remaining in one of the half-tents or elsewhere out of sight of passers-by. I was to ride into Lydenburg and lodge information – for in such a case the authorities would surely act. That was the best, or at any rate the first, course to be tried.

  There was no difficulty about the warrant, for there were many counts in the indictment against Seedling; but even so worthless a brute as that seemed to have one friend, or perhaps an accomplice, to give him warning, and before we reached his quarters with the police he had cleared on horseback for Portuguese territory, taking with him a led horse.

  We got most of Jim’s cattle back for him – which he seemed to consider the main thing – but we were sorely disgusted at the man’s escape.

  That was the year of the ‘rush’. Thousands of newcomers poured into the country on the strength of the gold discoveries; materials and provisions of all kinds were almost unprocurable and stood at famine prices; and consequently we – the transport-riders – reaped a golden harvest. Never had there been such times; waggons and spans were paid for in single trips; and so great was the demand for supplies that some refused transport and bought their own goods, which they resold on the goldfields at prices twice as profitable as the highest rates of transport.

  Thus the days lost in the attempt to catch Seedling were valuable days. The season was limited and, as early rains might cut us off, a few days thrown away might mean the loss of a whole trip. We hurried down, therefore, for the Bay, doing little hunting that time.

  Near the Crocodile on our way down we heard from men coming up that Seedling had been there some days before but that, hearing we were on the way down and had sworn to shoot him, he had ridden on to Komati, leaving one horse behind bad with horse-sickness. The report about shooting him was, of course, ridiculous – probably his own imagination – but it was some comfort to know that he was in such a state of terror that his own fancies were hunting him down.

  At Komati we learned that he had stayed three days at the store of that Goan murderer, Antonio – the same Antonio who on one occasion had tried to drug and hand over to the enemy two of our men who had got into trouble defending themselves against raiding natives; the same Antonio who afterwards made an ill-judged attempt to stab one Mickey O’Connor in a Barberton canteen and happily got brained with a bottle of his own doctored spirit for his pains.

  Antonio, suspecting something wrong about a white man who came on horseback and dawdled aimlessly three days at Komati Drift, going indoors whenever a stranger appeared, wormed the secret out with liquor and sympathy; and when he had got most of Seedling’s money out of him, by pretence of bribing the Portuguese officials and getting news, made a bold bid for the rest by saying that a warrant was out for him in Delagoa and he must on no account go on. The evil looking half-caste no doubt hoped to get the horse, saddle and bridle, as well as the cash, and was quite prepared to drug Seedling when the time came, and slip him quietly into the Komati at night where the crocodiles would take care of the evidence.

  Antonio, however, overshot the mark; Seedling, who knew all about him, took fright, saddled up and bolted up the river, meaning to make for the Lebombo near the Tembe Drift, where Bob McNab and his merry comrades ran free of Governments and were a law unto themselves. It was no place for a nervous man, but Seedling had no choice, and he went on. He had liquor in his saddlebags and food for several days; but he was not used to the bush, and at the end of the first day he had lost his way and was beyond the river district where the kaffirs lived.

  So much is believed, though not positively known; at any rate he left the last kraal in those parts about noon, and was next heard of two days later at a kraal under the Lebombo. There he learned that the Black Umbelusi, which it would be necessary to swim – as Snowball and Tsetse had done – lay before him, and that it was yet a great distance to Sebougwaans, and even then he would only be halfway to Bob’s. Seedling could not face it alone, and turned back for the nearest store.

  The natives said that before leaving the kraal he bought beer from them, but did not want food; for he looked sick; he was red and swollen in the face;
and his eyes were wild; the horse was weak and also looked sick, being very thin and empty; but they showed him the footpath over the hills which would take him to Tom’s – a white man’s store on the road to Delagoa – and he left them! That was Tom Barnett’s at Pessene, where we always stopped; for Tom was a good friend of ours.

  That was how we came to meet Seedling again. He had made a loop of a hundred and fifty miles in four days in his efforts to avoid us; but he was waiting for us when we arrived at Tom Barnett’s. We who had hurried on to catch him, believing that the vengeance of justice depended on us, forgot that it had been otherwise decreed.

  Tom stood in the doorway of his store as we walked up – five feet one in his boots, but every inch of it a man – with his hands resting idly on his hips and a queer smile on his face as he nodded welcome.

  ‘Did a white man come here on horseback during the last few days from the Drift?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘On foot?’

  ‘No, not the whole way.’

  ‘Is he here now?’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘You know about him, Tom?’

  ‘Seedling! the chap you’re after, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ we answered, lowering our voices.

  Tom looked from one to the other with the same queer smile, and then making a move to let us into the store said quietly, ‘He won’t clear, boys; he’s dead!’

  Some kaffirs coming along the footpath from the ‘Bombo had found the horse dead of horse-sickness half a day away, and further on – only a mile or so from the store – the rider lying on his back in the sun, dying of thirst. He died before they got him in.